The Contemporary Photobook Magazine
Review by Douglas Stockdale • R. A. Hansen’s photobook, dreaming backwards, is a nostalgic and poetic retrospective of an early body of work set in the rural landscape of middle America, the grand expanses where he was raised in Iowa. Hansen’s photographs are combined with his poems and personal reflections on these poignant early moments of his... Continue Reading →
Review by Douglas Stockdale • An apt way to describe Ewa Monika Zebrowski’s artist book, van gogh’s bed, is that it has punctum, a work of art that is imbued with emotional impact. Which also serves as a subtle clue, for those who are familiar with Roland Barthes, the late French philosopher, as to the indirect subject of this body... Continue Reading →
Review by Wayne Swanson • Toshio Shibata likes to blur boundaries. Between the natural and the human-made. Between the representational and the abstract. Between photography and drawing. Shibata, one of Japan's preeminent landscape photographers, has focused his attention since the early 1980s on the intersection of nature and infrastructure, finding art in scenes of bridges, dams,... Continue Reading →
PBJ Issue Number 35 • February became a difficult month for those who love democracy, with an unrelenting attack of Ukraine by a madman in Russia. We are unsure of how this will end, but I am voting for the people of Ukraine to persevere. Remember, most Russian citizens do not support this war, thus as you consider what Russian goods to... Continue Reading →
Review by Melanie Chapman • As the saying goes: You can’t judge a book by its Cover. In the case of the new Thames and Hudson publication “Face Time: A History of the Photographic Portrait”, edited by Phillip Rodger, the cover itself agrees. Two youths are photographed with slight variations in perspective so that each looks... Continue Reading →
Review by Douglas Stockdale • I may not be a relationship expert, but I highly suspect that stating the reason for another person to stay in a relationship is that otherwise if they left all of the plants would die may not be the most enticing of rationales. The book’s title appears to be a retrospective... Continue Reading →
Review by Wayne Swanson • Many people see melancholy in the dying of the light, but French photographer Philippe Ciaparra sees utopia. At twilight he finds himself “in a chiaroscuro theater, immersed in the daydreams of my inner journey.” Ciaparra is a Paris-based fashion and portrait photographer, but in his personal work he focuses on long-exposure... Continue Reading →
Welcome to our 34th Issue • This is our first Issue for 2022 that includes a review of Ken Light's Course of the Empire and Peter Puklus's The Hero Mother. How to Build a House, both of which are featured in our Interesting Artist and Photobooks for 2021. Please enjoy Douglas StockdaleSenior Editor ____ Books featured in January 2022: Ken Light - Course of the Empire Perhaps... Continue Reading →
Review by Douglas Stockdale • Living in Southern California, I have a familiarity with border walls, specifically the American-Mexican wall that lies less than 100 miles south of my home. After relocating to California, a trip to the Tijuana tourist shops in near-by Mexico was usually on the list of go-to places for visiting relatives, parking... Continue Reading →
Review by Wayne Swanson • The everyday landscape is filled with the banal, the kitschy, and the mundane. But that doesn’t mean it can’t be artful and engaging. Philadelphia-based photographer Martin Buday spent two decades traveling around the United States, collecting images that capture the wonder in the ordinary. The result is Prophetic Kingdom, which shows that... Continue Reading →
PhotoBook Journal 